About six months ago in this space, I noted my possibly surprising lack of intention to get an iPad. I own pretty much every other Apple gizmo possible (now including both generations of Apple TV—at least they’re hooked up to different TVs), so why not an iPad? My reasoning was that the 2nd generation is likely to have better screen resolution, which is particularly important for reading.
No, Apple didn’t release a high-res iPad, but I went in anyway. So, what happened? Well, some discretionary money at work had to be spent by the end of the calendar year (which, frankly, I’d rather carry over for next year and spend on travel; technically, my employer actually owns the iPad) and I have some travel coming up for which I’d really like to have a computer, but I don’t want to lug my full laptop package. The last trip I tried that on I just brought my hackintoshed netbook with me, but I have to say, I actively dislike that machine for a variety of reasons, including (but not limited to) the crappy small screen, the vile trackpad, the crummy keyboard, and the weak battery life. Also, my wife really wants an iPad for Christmas and, being the good Apple zealot that I am, I didn’t want to go into supporting that experiment without some experience first.
So I’ve had an iPad for about a week now—what do I think?
First, yes, in a lot of ways it’s really a big iPod Touch. But while a lot of people mean that as a criticism, I don’t see it that way at all. I’ve been using an iPhone for a couple years now and so everything feels familiar. Plus, there is something highly significant about the “big” part. Having a larger screen than a phone makes a qualitative difference—it’s not just more, it’s something different. The iPhone is a fantastic mobile computer, but it’s still a phone. The iPad feels like a “real” computer. It’s not quite a replacement for my 15″ MacBook, but then neither is a crappy netbook. But it’s definitely better than the netbook for the tasks that I actually did on that machine, things like email and web browsing. And it’s definitely better for leisurely movie watching. I strongly suspect that Jobs is right and 7” isn’t really big enough for a really good tablet. If anything I think the iPad could be a smidge bigger, actually, without trouble, maybe 10.5” on the diagonal rather than 9.7”. The soft keyboard, which I actually don’t mind, wouldn’t be hurt by being a smidge bigger, but it would really suck for it to be any smaller.
That said, I’m eagerly awaiting the release of iOS 4.2. Not so much for the multitasking (which I appreciate, but is WAY overblown as a concern for end users; mostly I care in order to have an IM client running while I do other things, and that’s pretty frivolous), but because one of the apps I need to have for the iPad is waiting for 4.2. That’d be OmniOutliner. I feel like I think in hierarchies and I certainly organize by them, and I have probably thousands of OO documents on my hard disk. OmniGroup has said that the iPad version won’t be released until after 4.2 comes out, and so I wait with bated breath. This is my primary note-taking and organization app, so I feel slightly crippled in meetings without it.
So far, I’ve been pretty impressed with the software available for the iPad. I cannot for the life of me figure out why Apple didn’t include the iPhone “Clock” application with the iPad, but otherwise so far, so good. The iWork suite seems pretty good on the iPad though there are still some things I cannot quite grok in places (e.g., how do you edit master slides in Keynote?) and it’s great that lots of my favorite iPhone apps already have iPad versions, often the same version for no extra cost. It’s also nice to see other desktop Mac favorites showing up on the iPad, though usually for extra money. Special shout out to BareBones for the iPad version of Yojimbo, which is excellent, though it’d be even better if it supported iDisk sync. (Note to BBSW: I would pay good money for an iPad version of TextWrangler or BBEdit, too. I’d be willing to beta test!) And there are some other little bits of cool that are just too good to resist, like DisplayPad.
There are some weaknesses, too, of course. One of my current peeves on the software end is that you cannot install fonts on the iPad, which hoses many of my Keynote presentations. It’d also be nice if there was somewhat better feature parity between desktop and iPad versions of the iWork suite, again, particularly Keynote. That Facebook doesn’t have an iPad-native client is shocking, though if it sucks as much as the iPhone client, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. (Unfortunately, Mobile Safari doesn’t do chat in Facebook. I don’t care, but my wife does.) I actually expected there to be more difficulty in getting documents off and on the iPad, but most (though not all; I’m especially looking at you, MacJournal) apps support either Dropbox or iDisk and going through “the cloud” (I hate that term) isn’t too bad, really. Sidebar: Apple, get your freakin’ act together and either buy Dropbox or make iDisk as good. iDisk is an embarrassment compared to Dropbox. End sidebar, though actually that’d be a good tweet.
On the hardware end, the form factor is fantastic. The first time I held one I initially thought it might be a bit too heavy to hold while reading, but that hasn’t been a problem so far. The Apple case that props up one side of it is also terrific, though it’d be nice if it came in colors other than black. The battery life is truly excellent, as advertised. The biggest thing I’d like to see still is, of course, a higher screen resolution. I’ve gotten very used to the iPhone’s kick-ass display, and while I don’t expect 300+ ppi, I’d still really rather have 200+. I can see why people would want a camera, but I don’t see the lack of one as a big weakness.
Overall, I’m quite impressed, particularly for a 1.0 Apple product. For $500 it’s amazing. Maybe not so amazing at $830 for max storage and 3G, but if you don’t really need the 3G and aren’t a spacehog, I think it’s pretty remarkable for a company well-known for being expensive.
Anybody got a recommendation for a small travel Bluetooth keyboard? I’m not sure I really need it but if there’s a good cheap one, it might be worth a look…